While someone else sees darkness and muted colors
It’s foggy this morning as I write this.
I like the fog.
It’s mysterious, is it not? Sounds are a bit muted, which I also like. Shapes are distorted, and I find that interesting as well.
It’s a fascinating phenomenon, really, especially if the fog is really thick. The obvious suddenly doesn’t seem so obvious. A tree you have passed by literally thousands of times suddenly looks sinister. A mail box, from a distance, looks like a little child. Our imaginations play tricks on our minds. What we think we see we actually don’t see, and what we have always seen morphs into something never seen before.
Pretty incredible, really!
“Red is gray and yellow white, and we decide which is right . . . and which is an illusion.”
As a writer I see certain parallels with the fog. Whenever I try to critique my own work, or do an in-depth edit of my own work, my view of that work is distorted by the fog caused by my closeness to that work. My logic becomes shrouded. My analytical skills suddenly lose their edge because, after all, we are talking about MY work, and I am attached to that work emotionally and, well, emotions have a way of muddling the whole affair, or so it seems to me.
What’s the old saying . . . a doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient? It’s like that, me thinks, when trying to critique oneself. Objectivity goes right out the window and is hauled off with the weekly garbage.
Just random thoughts as the sun burns away the last of the morning fog.
THE SAME MOST OF MY LIFE
I find it very hard to be objective regarding any of my work or accomplishments. I tend to hold back praise of any sort. I tend to be the harshest of taskmasters when judging something I have done or accomplished. Whatever I have done is never going to meet the standards I have set. Never! According to a little voice in my head, I never should have published or posted any stories or novels, because none of them were “perfect.” I should still be editing them and trying to find the perfection I chase in vain.
Silly, right?
But at some point I just have to recognize my silliness, bite the proverbial bullet, and publish what I have done. I have to accept that perfection is a fool’s quest, and I have to embrace the fact that I am a spiritual being having a human experience.
And I don’t have to like that fact. Acceptance is the key for me, but being satisfied with acceptance is not always possible.
And I’m fine with that!
I’m a jumbled mess, and I’m fine with that as well.
Anyway, the fog has lifted, and it is time to head to the farm and take advantage of this unseasonably warm October we are having.
I wish you all peace of mind and heart this week. You deserve it!
Bill
“Helping writers to spread their wings and fly.”
Billybuc
Artistry With Words 